I apparently didn't get my response posted to the proposal to move the EMF to Chicago.

Vacation time -- you don't go to Chicago museums, but try to go to the east coast to see theirs; same thing about the EMF. If it were in Chicago, area people probably wouldn't come out in force. Given the fact that a 1-day workshop only drew 35 people (as opposed to the over 100 we get on a bad year at WW). Also the instructors are from MN, WI and all over. I doubt they would appreciate being asked to come another 3-4 hours futher. As Tevya said "TRADITION.... TRADITION!"

There's always room for another workshop, and my guess it would be better to begin one from scratch rather than modify an already popular venue that's been working for 30+ years! Go get 'em.

I don't see the point of recreating the weekend-only Whitewater festival/workshop here in Chicago. Better to leave it as is, where it is.

But, there are still the options of:

--A new week-long professional performance festival (with a mix of local and non-local acts) here in the Chicago area. (And I don't mean another series like Bach Week or Handel Week. Something more broad-based.)

--A new week-long hybrid professional performance festival/amateur workshop here in the Chicago area.

Either of these is definitely worth considering.

IP Logged

"It is our conviction that if anything is worth doing at all, it is worth doing badly."--Wayne Booth, writing about amateur musicians' passion for playing in For the Love of It

And I like what Mike said about Bach not being early enough for some of us. But it seems the whole "Early Music Movement" has latched on to the Baroque-is-good-and-maybe-even-early-Classical-and-if-you-do-Berlioz-wit h-serpents-like-he-originally-intended-that-could-be-early-too thing. I like Baroque, but as a standard-definition "Classical" musician, I have had the chance to play Baroque in concert with chamber orchestras (though not as much as I'd like- Bach really was wonderful). When I think of Early Music, I think of "stuff I never get to play in orchestra". Maybe what we need is a *Really Early Music* movement!

And when I proposed moving Whitewater, I meant to keep it pretty much the same- at least initially. Building gradually on something we already have that works pretty well seems like a rational plan. In my ideal world, though, we'd pretty much transfer the Boston Festival to Michigan Avenue. Ain't gonna happen anytime soon though, unless one of you is holding out on some serious cash?....

And to emfcentral- I understand what you're saying, too. But I wouldn't put the new festival right in the heart of Chicago- within an hour's drive seems okay, though. And Whitewater wasn't *always* at Whitewater, was it? Don't forget that moving it an hour or so South would make it easier for the Indiana and Central Illinois folks!

(And there are a couple of us on faculty at Whitewater that keep to the earlier music as a rule. We do what we can to keep our Early Music "real"! )

« Last Edit: Apr 7th, 2003, 1:28pm by MasquedPhoenix1 »

IP Logged

-KK "Let me make the songs of a Nation and I care not who makes its laws."-Plato

Here's an idea... Y'all come to the Whitewater Early Music Festival, enjoy yourselves, and fill out the questionnaire that will be reviewed by the entire Board of the Oak Park Recorder School after the event. All suggestions will be reviewed and considered. In the long run, that's who'll make the decisions. [Masqued Phoenix and EMFcentral included, agreeing, disagreeing, or making compromises, with the rest of the board!]. We are always in the development stage to keep the workshop interesting. I do like the idea of perhaps focusing on ONLY "Early" music in all classes one year to see how that works out.

Correctly put regarding "early music," and I also prefer that to contemporary and music not originally written for recorder in the "days of yore." If it's an EARLY music festival, perhaps it means not only early instruments but the music written for them also. Something to chew on. --Carol--

Actually, I don't think that having an "all Renaissance and Medieval" year would necessarily be a good idea. Lots of people like Baroque. Plus, for the more advanced players, Baroque music offers more fun in the way of techinical challenges. Variety is good, but I do think we should try to insure that there is always some Medieval stuff in the mix for those who like it. I think Whitewater has always had some, so no problems here. I just hate seeing all those festivals listed as "Early Music Festivals" who offer nothing but Baroque. They don't do recorder players much good- if they focus on ensemble music, it will likely be orchestral and then the place for the recorderist is very limited. But that's why there are so many festivals. Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks and all that...

« Last Edit: Apr 14th, 2003, 8:39am by MasquedPhoenix1 »

IP Logged

-KK "Let me make the songs of a Nation and I care not who makes its laws."-Plato

Submitting a questionnaire to Whitewater EMF participants asking their opinions about various aspects of the festival--I like that idea!

I think Whitewater, at least, does a pretty good job of covering all sub-genres of early music. Whitewater, or any other so-called "early music festival," without Medieval or Renaissance music would be far less appealing to me. I would sooner attend a festival of Medieval and Renaissance music (and no Baroque) than an all-Baroque festival.

I must say this about the Whitewater EMF, however: It's very recorder heavy! It would be nice to attract more viol players (more than the 6-8 in attendance last year), more lute players, more sackbut and shawm players, and so on. Weren't at least 75-80% of last year's participants recorder players?

Recorder music != early music.

IP Logged

"It is our conviction that if anything is worth doing at all, it is worth doing badly."--Wayne Booth, writing about amateur musicians' passion for playing in For the Love of It

I agree that it would be nice to have more instrumentalists besides recorders. However, the recorder is a fairly common instrument, and some people have recorders that can't afford anything else or have never gotten the opportunity to learn other instruments. The festival may be a way to introduce mere recorder-players to the rest of early music-making. Maybe it would be a good idea to encourage more strongly the classes for beginning crumhorn, viol, etc. There aren't really enough teachers or hours in the day to have beginning classes in all the instruments (such as sackbut or shawm, which not too many people would have anyway), but maybe a class covering a basic overview of various instruments unique to early music would be helpful.

HELLO! The Early Music Festival is run by the OAK PARK RECORDER SCHOOL, started by same for recorders. The other instruments were window dressing on the side. It's grown to include more variety of early instruments but -- recorderists need their little space in the world and if it goes toward the leanings of other workshops who have week-long focuses on instruments such as viols, bagpipes, sacbuts, even... Oh, well, I'm swimming upstream, I guess. You all keep those ideas coming -- and we ARE exploring viol contacts for more gamba players this year. Recorders are unique and need their venues to continue their revival. Recorder players eventually branch out into other early instruments, too, but who wants to listen to hours of sacbut or shawm music?

There is a crumhorn class that is advertised as being for "Any and ALL levels", including "technique assistance for new players". (Quoting from this year's class schedule as posted on the internet) They'd probably take you in.

I don't think we should take this event away from the recorder players. I really enjoy recorder music and the variety you can play on one small family of instruments.

It seems that an event called the Early Music festival should cover many aspects of that music, and early musicians played on many instruments, as well as frequent singing. There are classes for singing and several other instruments already, but it would be nice if we could get these classes up to the standard of some of the most advanced recorder classes. For example, viols have broken out and created one beginning class and another one for people beyond that. I enjoy listening to the viol groups in the concert at the end. It helps break up the tone of the concert, as well as giving good exposure so other people want to try it out.

Maybe we could start by making it more acceptable to have instruments besides recorders at the general classes on composers or early music techniques. The violists, crumhornists , etc. tend to bunch together in their respective specialty classes.

"Maybe we could start by making it more acceptable to have instruments besides recorders at the general classes on composers or early music techniques. The violists, crumhornists , etc. tend to bunch together in their respective specialty classes."

Oh, boy, would I love that! Every year I try to get people other than recorderists into my class by saying "all instrumentalists welcome". But since there are so few viol players, they all tend to go to the viol consort class. And if they didn't, well, there wouldn't be much of a viol consort class! Dave Echlard has the best mixed draw- he attracts singers and harpists and vielle players. It would be great to have more "mixed-up" classes- I'd love to hear some of the stuff I teach with broken consorts and singers. But we still are a festival with more ice cream than sprinkles. I love the ice cream- don't get me wrong. But a few more sprinkles would be nice...

I know for a fact that Carol sent out an e-mail invitation to all the area viol players on the local viol list to find out more about the festival. She didn't receive much in the way of replies. And now that the viols have moved their regular monthly jam at Northwestern to June 8th, it doesn't look like we'll be getting many last minute recruits. Sometimes it feels like the Chicago Early Music Civil War without the artillery and menace! (Okay, there's probably a much better analogy out there- please feel free to offer it up.) But it seems like we each go about in our own orbits blissfully unacknowledging of the fact that we could do such wonderful things together. In the past I've proposed having the viol players come to some of the Chicago ARS meetings without any success. I'll keep trying, but if anyone has any bright ideas on how to make this happen...?

Perhaps a relatively informal "Summer Jam" somewhere in the city? Recorder society and viol society each bring a pile of music, designate a couple of directors and let the notes fly? We could probably get St. Luke's basement as a locale, but something even bigger would be nice (suggestions, anyone?). Nothing formal, just a fun afternoon of playing. People could bring a few munchies. Pot-luck and Praetorious? Munchies and Machaut? Snacks and Senfl? What say the masses? If this works, we could make a big leap toward bringing up interest in Whitewater attendence for next year. Sometimes one small step can lead to the most wonderful destination...

(Oh, and as for other "learn to play it" classes- a good idea, but the big problem is where do you get the loaner instruments. Solve that problem, and you can have all the "intro to whatever" classes you want!)

« Last Edit: May 5th, 2003, 8:58am by MasquedPhoenix1 »

IP Logged

-KK "Let me make the songs of a Nation and I care not who makes its laws."-Plato

So many ideas for such a little time span. We're limited to the amount of classroom space and to offer too many classes would cut the size of each of those classes. Many ideas to ponder, and some things in the works for the future involving many things discussed, but will LOVE to see how many complete their questionnaires at the end of Whitewater other than "we had fun" "loved the ice cream" "what was the mystery meat?".

I like the idea of a jam session -- get the space and I'll be there! Charge $5 each plus BYO (pop and music for the masses). Perhaps get someone to be there to direct for those who have music but no ability to lead a group. Let's put this on a new venue and leave it out of Whitewater's thread... Berto? Can we move this stuff?

The EMF was moved to Whitewater because MILTON COLLEGE FOLDED! ... and it moved only to the virtual next campus down the road.

If someone could get us back into Carthage College, I think it would be great! However, UWW-Whitewater has been very very good to us in accommodating our needs throughout the years. I would love to see the Midwest Workshop become resurrected at the small college venue for 4-5 days, and this is perhaps where branching out could be done with a new venue and a new set of directors [and new MONEY!]. Lots of talk, someone take action if you want a Chicago area workshop -- July, August on the lakefront in Kenosha! Sounds real inviting!

In the meantime, GET THOSE RESERVATIONS IN FOR WHITEWATER!!!!! Time's running...

> Let's put this on a new venue and leave it out of Whitewater's thread... Berto? Can we move this stuff?

As Forum Moderator, I try not to intervene except to fix obvious problems (like serious formatting errors, straying off topic into total irrelevance, use of profanity--not that anyone has done that so far!).

If the discussion is veering too far away from the original message topic (which this has, on occasion), the thing to do is to start an entirely new message thread by

--going to the Chicago Area Early Music (or whatever) top-level menu --clicking on the "Start new topic" icon to the lower right

Try to use a catchy, descriptive Subject, of course.

Berto

IP Logged

"It is our conviction that if anything is worth doing at all, it is worth doing badly."--Wayne Booth, writing about amateur musicians' passion for playing in For the Love of It